Art: Wires Down

Last week as war edged closer, silencing telephones and cables (see p.
30), in the sombre and silent halls of Europe's libraries and museums
communication was at an end too: the wisdom of men long dead was being
packed up and laid away in vaults, in cellars, to wait as it has waited
before for the end of war or crisis.

In Paris, where it has become routine to guard the nation's art against
the menace of German guns, the doors of the Louvre were locked and
workmen began stolidly to remove its treasures. Some...